Show notes
On today’s episode of True Crime Time For, Cyndi takes over the microphone and begins with a message for the families who continue sending Real Life Real Crime information about unsolved cases.
There are more families asking for help than there are hours in the day. Cyndi explains that Woody is the investigator while she serves as the keeper and organizer of much of the information coming in. Every family deserves to have its case examined carefully, but meaningful investigative work cannot be rushed. She asks for patience, grace and understanding while Woody works through cases one at a time.
Then Cyndi gets into On This Day in Crime—and immediately discovers that something isn't right.
The September 4 entry says Wayne Nathan Nance, better known as the “Missoula Mauler,” died after attacking his boss and his boss’s wife, listed as Doug and Teresa Wells. But a few sentences later, it says Nance was attempting to sexually assault a woman named Chris.
Cyndi stops.
Who is Kris?
That question uncovers a much larger story.
The original account had accidentally combined two different couples. The couple who survived Wayne Nance’s final attack were Doug and Kris Wells. Teresa Shook was an entirely different woman who, along with her husband Michael “Mike” Shook, had been murdered months earlier.
And once Cyndi starts separating those two cases, the similarities become chilling.
Doug and Kris Wells Fight Back
The story begins on the night of September 3, 1986, in Missoula, Montana.
Doug and Kris Wells returned home and encountered 30-year-old Wayne Nance outside their property.
Nance wasn't a stranger. Kris knew him through work. She was a manager at a furniture store where Nance worked as a delivery driver.
Nance claimed he had noticed someone suspicious around the Wells home. He presented himself not as the threat—but as the person trying to warn them about one.
Then he attacked.
Nance struck Doug in the head. When Kris came to investigate, Nance produced a gun and forced her to tie up her husband. He restrained Kris as well and took her upstairs, where he tied her to the bed.
Nance then brought Doug into the basement, tied him to a support post, beat him and stabbed him in the chest with a large kitchen knife.
He apparently believed Doug was dying.
He was wrong.
Despite being beaten, bound and stabbed, Doug managed to free himself.
In the basement was a rifle Doug had been working on—and he had one round.
Instead of quietly escaping, Doug deliberately made enough noise to bring Nance back downstairs.
Nance came.
Doug fired.
Even after being shot, Nance continued fighting. During the struggle, Nance shot Doug in the leg. Kris fought back as well, and eventually Nance was overwhelmed.
Doug and Kris Wells survived.
Wayne Nance did not.
He was transported to the hospital and died from his injuries on September 4, 1986.
That could have been the end of the story.
Instead, it became the beginning of an investigation into whether the man Doug Wells had just killed was a serial murderer.
Donna Pounds — 1974
Investigators began looking backward.
One of the earliest cases associated with Nance was the April 1974 murder of Donna Pounds.
Pounds was attacked inside her Missoula home. She was restrained, sexually assaulted and shot, and an attempt was made to set the home on fire.
Nance knew the family and was investigated at the time. Authorities reportedly presented the case to a grand jury, but there was insufficient evidence to indict him.
Nance was only 18.
Cyndi points out several details worth remembering: a home invasion, restraint, sexual violence, murder and an attempt to use fire afterward.
Those behaviors would become important years later.
Devonna Louise Nelson — “Betty Beavertail”
In 1980, the remains of a teenage girl were discovered east of Missoula.
Investigators didn't know who she was.
For years, she was known by a name that wasn't hers: “Betty Beavertail.”
She was eventually identified as 15-year-old Devonna Louise Nelson.
Nance became a possible suspect in her death, but this is one place where Cyndi makes an important distinction: investigators have not definitively established that Wayne Nance murdered Devonna.
Her murder remains unsolved.
Marcella Cheri “Marci” Bachmann — “Debbie Deer Creek”
The connection becomes considerably stronger with Marcella Cheri “Marci” Bachmann, a 16-year-old runaway from Oregon.
Marci reportedly used the name Robin while away from home and crossed paths with Wayne Nance.
In December 1984, her remains were discovered in a shallow grave near Missoula. Investigators couldn't identify her, so she became another Jane Doe with a geographic nickname:
“Debbie Deer Creek.”
After Nance's death, investigators found evidence showing that Marci had actually known him—including photographs of the two together. Evidence recovered from Nance further strengthened the connection between them.
Marci was finally identified in 2006.
Janet Lee Lucas — “Christy Crystal Creek”
Then there was another unidentified woman.
In September 1985, skeletal remains were discovered near Crystal Creek outside Missoula. The woman had been shot twice in the head.
Again, investigators didn't know her name.
She became “Christy Crystal Creek.”
More than 35 years later, investigative genetic genealogy finally restored her identity:
Janet Lee Lucas, 23.
Janet had a five-year-old son when she disappeared. Her family spent decades without knowing what had happened to her.
Nance has been investigated as a possible suspect, particularly because Janet's remains were discovered in the same general area as Marci Bachmann's.
But again, Cyndi is careful not to turn suspicion into fact.
Authorities have not established that Nance murdered Janet Lucas. Her case remains a cold-case homicide investigation.
Michael and Teresa Shook
Then comes the case that explains why Teresa accidentally ended up attached to the Wells name in the original calendar entry.
Teresa was Teresa Shook.
She and her husband, Michael “Mike” Shook, were murdered in their home outside Missoula in December 1985.
The couple were restrained. Teresa was sexually assaulted. Both were killed, and the house was set on fire while their children were still inside.
The children survived.
And suddenly the similarities to Donna Pounds were impossible to ignore.
Donna had been attacked inside her home.
She had been restrained.
She had been sexually assaulted.
She had been shot.
Someone had attempted to use fire afterward.
Then Mike and Teresa Shook were attacked in their home, restrained and murdered before their killer set the house on fire.
Nine months later, Nance entered Doug and Kris Wells' home, restrained the couple, separated them and tried to kill Doug.
But this time, the husband survived.
And after Nance died, investigators discovered something far more concrete:
Property belonging to the murdered Shooks was found among Nance's possessions.
That evidence transformed the investigation.
This wasn't simply a crime that resembled something Wayne Nance might have done. Property belonging to murder victims had ended up in his possession.
Reconstructing the Life of a Dead Suspected Serial Killer
Investigators were now faced with an unusual problem.
Their suspect was dead.
They couldn't interrogate Nance.
They couldn't confront him with evidence.
They couldn't ask where he had been when these women disappeared.
And they could never put him before a jury and have his guilt or innocence determined in court.
Instead, detectives had to reconstruct his life backward.
What emerged was a disturbing collection of cases with very different levels of evidence.
Some had strong physical or circumstantial connections to Nance.
Others remained cases in which he was merely a suspect.
And that distinction matters.
Once someone earns the label “serial killer,” it can become tempting to attach every unsolved murder in the same area to that person. Cyndi deliberately avoids doing that.
What can be said with certainty is that on September 3, 1986, Wayne Nance entered the home of Doug and Kris Wells and attempted to kill them.
Doug Wells fought back.
And on September 4, 1986, Wayne Nathan Nance died.
Nance was never tried or convicted of the murders later associated with him. Yet evidence discovered after his death led investigators to believe the attack on the Wells family was not an isolated act and to examine him in connection with multiple killings around Missoula.
For the families of Donna Pounds, Devonna Nelson, Marci Bachmann, Janet Lucas, Michael Shook and Teresa Shook, many questions outlived Wayne Nance.
And the entire story started because Cyndi noticed one little inconsistency:
Who the hell is Chris?
True Crime Time For, Real Life Real Crime, Cyndi Overton, Woody Overton, Wayne Nance, Wayne Nathan Nance, Missoula Mauler, Missoula Montana, Doug Wells, Kris Wells, Donna Pounds, Devonna Louise Nelson, Betty Beavertail, Marcella Cheri Bachmann, Marci Bachmann, Debbie Deer Creek, Janet Lee Lucas, Christy Crystal Creek, Michael Shook, Mike Shook, Teresa Shook, Montana serial killer, suspected serial killer, cold case, unidentified victims, Jane Doe, investigative genetic genealogy, DNA identification, home invasion, true crime podcast
- Wayne Nathan Nance
- Missoula Mauler
- Doug and Kris Wells
- Wells home invasion
- Doug Wells fighting back
- Donna Pounds murder
- Devonna Louise Nelson
- “Betty Beavertail”
- Marcella “Marci” Bachmann
- “Debbie Deer Creek”
- Janet Lee Lucas
- “Christy Crystal Creek”
- Michael and Teresa Shook
- Shook family murders
- Evidence found in Nance's possession
- Unidentified murder victims
- DNA identification
- Investigative genetic genealogy
- Suspected versus confirmed victims
- Unsolved Montana murders
- The original September 4 calendar entry combined two different couples. Nance's surviving victims were Doug and Kris Wells; Teresa was Teresa Shook, who was murdered with her husband Michael months earlier.
- Doug Wells' actions stopped the attack. After being beaten, bound and stabbed, he freed himself, reached a rifle with one available round and confronted Nance. Doug and Kris survived; Nance died the following day.
- Not every murder associated with Wayne Nance should be described as a confirmed Nance murder. Devonna Nelson and Janet Lucas are among the cases in which authorities investigated him as a possible suspect without definitively establishing that he killed them.
- The Shook case provided a much stronger connection. Property belonging to Michael and Teresa Shook was discovered among Nance's possessions after his death.
- Modern DNA and genetic genealogy gave identities back to women who spent years known only as Betty Beavertail, Debbie Deer Creek and Christy Crystal Creek.
- And this episode demonstrates exactly why stopping when something doesn't make sense matters: one wrong first name was the clue that two completely different crimes had been blended together.
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